This invention relates in general to a measuring system for determining the ratio of a pair of reactances and in particular to a precision measuring system for comparing the electrical sizes of two capacitors to determine their ratio with a high degree of accuracy.
A variety of arrangments have been developed for measuring the capacitance of capacitors. Most of these arrangements, however, require constant operating characteristics, such as a constant supply voltage, operating temperature, etc., to obtain accurate results. In contrast, the measuring system of the present invention achieves very precise measurements at all times and is immune to any variations in operating characteristics. Moreover, this is accomplished by means of a relatively simple and inexpensive circuit arrangement. While the measuring system of the invention determines the ratio of two capacitors, it can easily be used to determine an unknown capacitance when the other capacitance is known.